WebRev Blog

We're finishing up our series today on how to quickly drive traffic to a blog post, by talking about polls.  As we discussed on Monday, people just LOVE to give their opinions.  This is good for you, because (hopefully), you want to hear their opinions, at least as they relate to your business.  So if you have a blog post that you want to promote quickly, one way to to it is to post a link to it to your various social networks, and ask for people to vote or comment on a specific question.  Here are some quick and easy ways to do that.

If you want to use an actual "poll," where people vote yes/no or choose from a list of options, and you have a Web Revelation Website, Tim can help you set up a poll on the main page of your site (contact). If you're using blogging software, inserting a blog post may be one of the features available to you.  Or you can use one of many free poll widgets available on the web (I like PollDaddy). 

The good thing about this type of poll is that it's quick and easy for  potential readers, and you're likely to get a lot of hits - especially on a controversial topic.  If you can key into current events, you're likely to get more traffic on your poll.  I remember for one of my group blogs, leading up to the 2008 elections, we could guarantee several hundred extra hits any time we ran a poll with the name "Ron Paul" in it.  it didn't even matter what the question was.  You'll want to be careful about being TOO controversial, however, because if you attract readers who are extremely passionate about the topic, they will occassionally spread the word about your poll to so many websites that it'll crash your servers, and you don't want that.  Think carefully about whether the readers you're likely to attract with your question will actually be potential customers for you.

The bad thing about the above type of poll is that you only get "clicks" and you still never really hear from your new readers, personally.  If personal interaction is important, you might instead include a question at the end of your post, which asks readers whether they agree or disagree and why.  Or you might ask if they have a suggestion for improvement for something specific.  You'll want to promote it to your social networks, making it clear that you are asking for opinions.  If you do this right, you'll end up with some good discussion among your readers, that will encourage return readership, and reader loyalty.

Another way to solicit reader opinions, and drive traffic is to periodically host an "open thread."  This is an alternative to a discussion forum, and gives readers a place to air their views.  It's usually a good idea to set a topic, but then not to monitor the thread too closely (except to delete any vulgar or abusive comments).  On some blogs, this can be a very good way to build community, and give newbies a place to "jump in."

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking. 
 

Like many folks in Oklahoma and the Midwestern U.S., I spent Tuesday watching the snow pile-up outside.  Of course many of us participated in a running commentary on Facebook or Twitter (because social networking is apparently a good way to deal with cabin fever).  A few of my Facebook friends liked the above photo, so I'm going to use it as an example of one of the things we talked about on Monday: Attract new visitors to your blog or website by including original photos or artwork, and labeling them correctly.  From Monday's post:

A lot of people search images.google.com for images for their own blog posts, so if you have photos or artwork (cartoons, etc.), that pertain to something that is going on in your area or in national news, be sure to include them with your post.  Remember, the search engines can not yet SEE the photos, and evaluate them based on content, so you'll need to give your photos a title that includes the search terms people will use to search for your photo.  Forget about copyright.  If you're lucky, other bloggers MIGHT link back to you and give you credit for the photo, but in most cases they're going to use and abuse it. Remember, your goal on this particular project is to attract readers, not sell your photo.

For this photo, I chose "Snowmageddon" for a title, because that's what a lot of people are calling this storm.  Instead, I could have also called it something like, "February 2011 Storm," or "Oklahoma Blizzard," because those are common search terms for information on  this week's weather.  Or, I could have put all three of these in the title, separating with commas.  But, using "Snowmageddon," for our example, here's what the HTML on the photo looks like.  The "title" is basically the "tag" or "keyword," or "search term," for the search engines.  the "alt" is text that will show up if the picture download is too slow for your reader's system.  These two do not necessarily need to be identical.

 If your blogging software give you an opportunity to title your post, you can do it there, or you can manually include a title by going to the "source" or "html" view for your posts, and manually typing title="snowmageddon" inside the image brackets as shown above. 

I hope all of you are staying safe and warm, and finding creative ways to use this wild weather for your online adventures.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking. 
 

Before reading this post, you may not have ever thought you would need to use a #hashtag.  Probably by now you've seen them all over the web.  I have one friend on Facebook who uses them as the punchline to jokes: 

 

An epic blizzard with a foot of snow and temps below zero and ... wait for it ... the power's out at my wife's photo studio. #frozenpipes -Joe Kelly

The #hashtag, however, is actually a type of feed on Twitter.com.  Yesterday, we talked about how the Twitter #hashtag is one quick way to attract readers to a blog post.  One of the more popular ones right now is #Egypt, because Egyptian protesters are using sites like Twitter to get new out about the protests going on there. Google is even getting in on the action, helping those who have had their internet access cut off by the government there by letting them phone in their tweets using the hashtag.

You can also view the trending topics list at search.twitter.com or in the sidebar of your Twitter account when you're signed in to see what tags and search terms are currently popular. 

For your business or project, however, you don't need to choose a #hashtag that is getting 500 tweets per minute.  In fact, you probably don't want that, especially if you're targeting a local market.  You really just need to use the tags or search terms that are getting a few tweets per hour.

Think about what the people who are looking for the information you are providing will be searching for on Twitter.  They may or may not be actually using the #hashtag format, so try your search both ways (with and without the # sign in front of your search).  For example, if I'm wanting to target Twitter users in the Tulsa area, I can search #Tulsa and Tulsa, and find that the search term without the # sign gets more hits.

Beyond that, just play around with different search terms to find out which ones ultimately get the most retweets, and/or drive traffic to your blog or web page.

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking. 
 

Building a loyal repeat readership takes, time, energy, and patience.  In most cases, you'll spend a lot of time social networking in the beginning of your blogging venture, and more on search engine optimization thereafter.

But what if you have a time-sensitive post that's really good?  Perhaps you've written something that has to do with current events or to do with a sale you're having this coming weekend, and you don't have several months to build web traffic.  What you need is for a bunch of people to see your post TODAY.   So, how do you do that?  Here are some ideas.

Include a poll with your post. 

 

People love, love, LOVE to give their opinions.  So include a poll with your post, and then link to your post from social networks like Twitter and your Facebook profile.

 

Include original photos or artwork, and label them correctly.

 

A lot of people search images.google.com for images for their own blog posts, so if you have photos or artwork (cartoons, etc.), that pertain to something that is going on in your area or in national news, be sure to include them with your post.  Remember, the search engines can not yet SEE the photos, and evaluate them based on content, so you'll need to give your photos a title that includes the search terms people will use to search for your photo.  Forget about copyright.  If you're lucky, other bloggers MIGHT link back to you and give you credit for the photo, but in most cases they're going to use and abuse it. Remember, your goal on this particular project is to attract readers, not sell your photo.

 

Use Twitter #hashtags and key search terms.

 

Twitter has become one of the first places people will go to get news about events that are evolving (e.g. #egypt).  You're only going to have their attention for a few seconds, so make your Twitter post concise and poignant.  If you need ideas for what #hashtags or keywords to use, you can play around with search.twitter.com, to see what search terms are getting a lot of "retweets" and hits - at least one per minute is a very active feed. 

 

Note:  You can combine the use of Twitter search idea above with either of the other two ideas - images or polls - and double the effect of your effort.  Have fun and good luck!

Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.